Authoring Device-Independent MIDI Files

• Microsoft Windows with Multimedia Extensions version 1.0

SUMMARY

MIDI files authored using the high-end data alone do not produce sound on a low-end MIDI device. For example, if a MIDI file was created that used only channels 2 through 5, a low-end device would not receive the MIDI data. Because there is no low-end version of the data, nothing is sent through the mapper to the low-end (for example, AdLib) device.

MORE INFORMATION

The 16 MIDI channels are organized as follows:

   Channel   Use
   -------   ---
      1      high-end (highest priority)
      2      high-end
      3      high-end
      4      high-end
      5      high-end
      6      high-end
      7      high-end
      8      high-end
      9      high-end (lowest priority)
     10      high-end percussive
     11      RESERVED
     12      RESERVED
     13      low-end (highest priority)
     14      low-end
     15      low-end (lowest priority)
     16      low-end percussive

In the case above, to hear the MIDI data, it would be necessary to create a map that passes the data on channels 2 through 5 to the AdLib, or to modify the file to use channels 13 through 16.